by Cameron Jace
Tom almost chuckles as he watches the Pillar’s profile, blood covered in Tibet, making fun of the Duchess in the Drury Lane Theatre, shooting people left and right, CCTV cameras showing him killing people inside parliament — my naive soul dragged along in a chair, of course — and last but not least, the Pillar’s bloodbath in Colombia.
“I do remember the BBC portraying him as a hero a few weeks back,” I comment. “They praised him for stopping the greatest drug lord in the world.”
“People forget, Alice,” Tom says. “The media can easily turn yesterday’s heroes into today’s villains. News is sometimes like bad remakes of remarkable movies. All jumbled up.”
I watch the Pillar’s footage of killing drug traffickers in Mushroomland, now portrayed as an insider war between drug lords. In truth, it’s hard to blame anyone. I, myself, don’t know what to think of this man.
However, something else puzzles me.
“If whoever invited us all had a chance to kill the Pillar, why didn’t he?” I ask Tom.
“I am assuming it’s someone in Black Chess,” Tom says. “For some reason the search for the Keys and the whole Inklings against them didn’t matter anymore. They know something we don’t. Something powerful.”
“Enough to want to ambush and kill us?”
“Why not? They don’t need us. Not even the Pillar. And because they’re not sure they can do it themselves — considering you and the Pillar always stand in the way — they decided to make you the public’s enemy number one.”
“I understand why we’re now terrorists, but I have a feeling I don’t understand what you’re implying.”
“Think of it, Alice.” Tom stares at the TV. “Don’t you see what’s going on? Our photos are being engraved in the minds of every British citizen in the world. We’re doomed. We’re the reason for every mother, father, and children’s pain in the last few years. This isn’t just about killing us.”
“Then what is it about?”
“It’s about labeling us. Even if we make it out of here, how can we ever persuade people we’re the good guys? By telling them we’re characters from Carroll’s book who just happened to be real? It’s some devious, and genius plan.”
Tom is right.
Having been concerned with the puzzle of my own family, I overlooked the fact that we’re deep in the mud right now. It’s going to be hard to even fight Wonderland Monsters anymore. I wonder if this is really our end.
My thoughts are interrupted by the Pillar’s moans. He raises his heavy head for a brief moment, glances at me with beady eyes, then falls back again.
This is when a slither of hope slices through the grayness of the situation. “What if the Pillar was sent here for another reason?” I challenge Tom.
“Who cares? We’re all mad corpses waiting for exile.”
“Don’t be like that,” I try to cheer him up. “It’s time you think of what’s happening, Dr. Truckle.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember why you’ve installed the surveillance cameras inside his cell?”
“Of course, I remember.” Tom was about to burst, but a soft breeze of epiphany cooled him down instantly. “Holy Lord of the Rings. You’re a genius, Alice. How did I forget about that? The Pillar knows how to escape from the asylum and return as he pleases.”
“See? There is hope after all.” I smile.
23
The Queen’s Bentley State Limousine
Having arrived, the Queen got out of the limo to talk to the police. Everyone seemed surprised by her presence, but she was welcomed, especially by the press. But before she started babbling on national TV, she’d made sure to send Jack to talk to Margaret in the limousine. Margaret had blurted the words out as bluntly as she could. She’d asked Jack to kill Alice. And Jack said yes, so spontaneously that Margaret had to investigate.
“Just like that?” she wondered. “You’re ready to kill the girl whom you know loves you so much?”
“She doesn’t love me,” Jack said. “She used to stalk me.”
“You’re used to killing anyone who stalks you?”
“Not really, but Lorina, my girlfriend, really hates her guts.”
“Oh.” Margaret was about to slap him on the face, but figured she didn’t want to upset the Queen to get what she wanted. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”
“Lorina and Edith taught me. They’ve asked me to kill Alice as well.”
“Some family,” Margaret mumbled. “So, I guess my work is done here.”
“All in the name of the Queen,” Jack said. The boy sounded as if brainwashed, but Margaret didn’t want to ask. “All in the name of Black Chess.”
“You know about Black Chess?”
“The Queen told me I should work for them. She promised they will pay my college fees and help me marry Lorina.”
“I see. Can I ask what you really like about Lorina?” Margaret refrained from saying more about the bratty girl with no empathy whatsoever.
“She likes me, so I like her back.”
“You sound so dumb,” Margaret said under her breath.
“What did you say?”
“I said you sound like my first boyfriend when I was in college.” She flashed a fake smile. Who was so dumb, she added in her mind. “So.” She clapped her hands. “I guess we wait here until the right moment comes so you can shoot Alice.”
“I thought I was going to enter the asylum to kill her.”
“No, darling,” Margaret said. “You will have to wait for the Queen’s orders. I’m not sure what exact plan she has in mind, but you will get your shot.”
24
The Radcliffe Asylum
Waking up the Pillar is a daunting task.
At one point he opens his eyes and pulls me closer and starts to dance a Caucus Race dance, one I know he is fond of. But when I talk to him, I realize he is kind of sleep walking. I push him away, suddenly conflicted about being so close to him.
It’s hard to even think about him right now. Is he evil? Is he good? Is he my father, or is he my number one nightmare in life? All I know is that he knows how to escape the asylum. A glance at the timer on BBC News shows me we have only ten hours left before the police barge in — or before we have to shut ourselves inside.
“I’m worried he is playing games.” Tom points at the Pillar. “What if he is faking his sleep?”
“I don’t see the point of that,” I tell him. “We’ve already concluded he isn’t the one who’s invited us here.”
“It doesn’t prove he is on our side, though.”
“I know. Stop reminding me. If I search my soul, I may hate him more than you can imagine. Right now, he is our only hope of escaping this place.”
Tom takes my words and leaves the cell. A minute later he arrives with his guards carrying buckets of ice cold water. “Time to give the professor a wakeup call.”
The guards repeatedly splash the Pillar with water. None of it wakes him up. The best result we get is the Pillar sneezing, a thin, frail, and cute sneeze, then he goes back to sleep.
“He is faking it,” Tom says. “Who doesn’t wake up from ice cold water?”
“I found something!” The March Hare arrives panting, interrupting our attempts to wake up the Pillar.
“On the walls?” I ask.
“Indeed,” the March says. “First of all, the scribbling is evident in almost every cell in the asylum. Same words, same gibberish, but it all tells the story about her, presumably you, Alice, and Him, and how you joined him to find his weakness.”
“We already know that, March,” I say. “Tell me something new.”
“All the writing was done by the same person,” the March says.
“That’s impossible,” Tom says. “I don’t know of a single patient who’s been to every cell in my asylum.”
“Maybe you don’t know much about your asylum,” I tell him. “The Pillar has proven that already. Who is that same person who wrote the messa
ge, March?”
“All the writing is signed by someone who calls himself Patient 14.”
“Oh, not again.” Tom waves a trembling hand in the air.
“You know who that is?” I ask.
“It’s all a myth, Alice,” Tom says. “Just like the writing. It’s some abracadabra nonsense written by the Mushroomers.”
“Tom!” I interrupt. “It’s time to tell me everything you know about this Patient 14.”
25
“It all started with Waltraud Wagner and Thomas Ogier,” Tom begins.
“Who are they?” the March asks.
“The two wardens responsible for me when I was in the asylum,” I explain to him. “They enjoyed frying my brains out in the Mush Room. Do you know what the Mush Room is?”
“Of course I do.” The March’s eyes glaze with a bitter taste of a memory. “They repeatedly used it on me when I was in the Hole, the asylum underground where we first met. But that’s before they installed the light bulb in my head.”
“Good.” I face Tom. “So what’s Waltraud and Ogier’s relation to Patient 14?”
“First, you have to understand who Waltraud and Ogier really are,” Tom says.
“I don’t understand. Are they not who they pretended to be?”
“No.” Tom lowers his head, lacing his hands nervously. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. Lewis told me to keep the asylum’s secrets for myself.”
“It’s too late for that, Tom.”
“I agree,” he says and stares back. “Waltraud and Ogier are Wonderlanders.”
“That’s really a bad joke,” I comment. “I mean they never seemed to know about anything that was going on.”
“That’s because I made sure they didn’t remember,” Tom says. “They were Black Chess’ best assassins. They were brutal.”
“How did you make them forget?” The March is curious.
“Lullaby pills,” Tom says. “Lots of them.”
“Why did you want them to forget?” I ask.
“Lewis had always wanted to avoid the inevitable Wonderland War. One of his plans was to get Wonderland Monsters hooked on Lullaby pills. It worked with Waltraud and Ogier, but rarely with the rest.”
“So Waltraud walked the asylum in a haze, not knowing who she was, all this time?”
“Not in the beginning. The pills took some time to work.”
“So which Wonderlanders were they?”
“Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”
26
I don’t comment. I’m not sure what to think of this.
“This doesn’t explain anything about Patient 14,” the March says, sounding overly interested. I think it’s because he can sympathize with every patient who’s been to an asylum before.
“Patient 14 is a legendary patient, a myth like I said, one I’ve never met,” Tom says. “According to the legend he knew of a great secret every Wonderlander sought after. Somehow, when we Wonderlanders crossed over to this world, he ended up in an asylum in Austria where Waltraud and Ogier worked.”
“I’m assuming this was not a coincidence,” I say.
“No it wasn’t. The Tweedles, or as some call them, the Dum brothers — I like to call them Dumb Brothers, but that’s another story — had been placed by Black Chess to interrogate this mysterious patient and find out the secret he kept. All of this happened in the 19th century when mental patients were still treated in violent ways.”
“And of course the Dum Brothers took turns in tormenting him.”
“Indeed. But Patient 14 was strong. He never spilled the secret. In fact, he influenced a lot of his mates to help him escape, but he failed,” Tom says. “Then later, he was sent to Britain where I was told by Lewis to catch any Wonderland Monsters I came across and feed them the Lullaby pills.”
“You don’t look like you’re capable of catching a Wonderland Monster,” the March says.
“That’s correct. So I lured them to work for me by claiming Patient 14 was hiding somewhere in my asylum.”
“Did it work?”
“It did, even better — and madder — than I’d anticipated.”
“How so?”
“They actually believed he was hiding among the other Mushroomers in here. This is how the Mush Room began.”
“This was the Dum Brothers idea?”
“It was, and I endorsed it. Anything to stop those annoying insane people from babbling all day long. It was driving me crazy.”
“I’d say the pills drove you crazy,” I tell him. “They also made you forget some details.”
“You could say so. But what matters is that the Dum Brothers fried every patient’s head, testing if they were Patient 14.”
“But you just said they’d forgotten who they were.”
“I said it didn't happen so fast. By the time they were tormenting you in the Mush Room, it had become a habit they enjoyed and never remembered why.”
“And the writing on the wall?”
“No one knows whose it is,” Tom says. “The fact that it’s signed by Patient 14 doesn’t prove he ever existed. Are you done interrogating me about that myth yet?”
“She isn’t,” the March says, looking a bit dizzy. “Because this Patient 14 knows the true story about how Alice and Him met. Knowing such a thing proves he isn’t a myth.”
I watch the March wince a little. I ask, “Are you all right?”
“I am. I think it’s the light bulb in my head playing games on me.”
I help him rest on the edge of the Pillar’s couch, feeling guilty he’s been dragged into this. The March is like the purest thing I’ve seen in this insane world. I want to hug him and keep him safe all the time.
I turn back to Tom Truckle. “So let’s say Patient 14 is real. Does that mean he’s the one who wrote on my cell’s wall?”
“Could be,” Tom says nonchalantly. “But that would mean he’s been to your cell or that you knew him at some point.”
“Or he’s known my family.”
“That, too, is a possibility.”
I share a moment of silence with all of them in the room. My eyes shift to the news showing the police cars waiting outside. Nine hours left, and nothing in this day makes the least bit of sense. I’m not sure if I should be digging deeper into Patient 14’s legend, or focus on waking up the Pillar to escape this place.
But, like usual, it’s the Pillar who makes these decisions for all of us. I watch him sit up on his couch with his beady eyes. He barely glances at us, then pulls out his small hookah nearby, lights it up, leans back on the couch and starts smoking.
He says, “Is it my eyes or is a bit blurry in here?”
27
It’s only seconds before the Mushroomers barge into the cell and greet the Pillar. He’s their idol. The leader of the pack. The crème de la crème of the bonkers and the loonies. The Pillar takes it up a notch and begins dancing with them.
“I told you he’s playing us,” Tom tells me.
I fist my hands and turn toward the Pillar and shout, “Stop it!”
The Mushroomers duck behind the couch. Again, they fear the girl who once worked for Black Chess, but ironically have a sweet thing for the most manipulative man in the world.
The Pillar calms the Mushroomers down, whispering, “Just don’t upset her. She’s a mad girl with a teenage problem. Remember Carrie, the movie?”
The Mushroomers duck even lower.
“Pillar!” I tense.
He straightens up, as if in an army, dropping the pipe’s hose. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“Don’t do this.” I’m playing as calm as I can. “This isn’t really the time.” I point at the TV. “We’re going to get killed in a few hours if you don’t anything about it.”
“I know.” He nods. “Heard you talking while I pretended I was asleep.”
“Told you he was faking it,” Tom says.
“Drop the act, pill popper,” the Pillar says. “I was asleep in the beginning, but then decided to list
en to what was going on. Did I really arrive in a coffin?”
“You did,” I answer.
“That’s some morbid gesture from whoever planned this unlikely gathering.”
“Who brought you here?”
“I have no idea. Got your message to meet you at the Inklings. Once I stepped in, someone knocked me on the head. The rest is a day trip in the back of a black limousine, I’m assuming.”
“I find it hard to believe,” I say. “It’s not easy fooling you.”
“I wouldn’t have fallen for the trick if my phone didn’t say the message was from you.”
“Don’t play sentimental on me.” I wave a hand. “You don’t have the slightest of my sympathies today. There’s so much you need to tell me.”
“I’ve told you everything you need to know in the note I wrote you. The Wonder note.”
I look sideways, not sure how to answer this.
“I take it you’ve never read it,” the Pillar says.
“I didn’t. It’s not with me here. I’ve buried it at the bottom of my Tiger Lily’s pot. The pot is kept in a safe box. I find it hard to believe that one word on that note explains everything.”
“It does,” the Pillar says. “Don’t underestimate the power of words. Love is one hell of a single word. It changes the course of our lives.”
“Oh, please.” I evade his eyes, or he’d infuse his magic upon me.
“What did you do to Inspector Dormouse?” Tom interrupts, taking a step toward the Pillar and playing brave. “What did you do to him?”
I watch the Pillar’s reaction, eager to hear another manipulative lie like he always does. This time, he really surprises me. “I shot Inspector Dormouse and buried him in an abandoned flower garden near Big Ben. I don’t think he minded. It’s nothing but an eternal nap for him. He always loved naps.”
